Thursday, July 20, 2017

Some Oklahoma districts are embracing Personalized Learning

Sarah Julian, the communications director for the Oklahoma Public School Resource Center, has a very interesting and encouraging article over at NonDoc this week. Headlined "Personalized Learning: Budget cuts spur new teaching model," the piece discusses personalized learning (PL), a new teaching model being adopted by many public school districts in Oklahoma and throughout the nation. She writes:
PL has gained traction nationwide not only for its ability to expand course options and engage students with a flexible learning schedule but also for the impressive student outcomes it produces. Gone is the "sage on the stage" lecture routine. Instead, PL provides students with a mix of digital and in-person instruction, which empowers teachers to serve as mentors and facilitators. Students are in the driver’s seat, where they have more responsibility and accountability for their own learning.

Staff with the Oklahoma Public School Resource Center (OPSRC) began working with school districts across the state in late 2015 to implement Oklahoma’s version of personalized learning: Momentum Schools. Momentum gives students the choice of how, when and where they attend school. For example, a school designates certain hours each day when the building is open. As long as students get their state-mandated 6.5 hours of seat time in each day, they can choose when to be physically present.

Further, instead of traditional group class time, students schedule meetings with individual teachers to assess schoolwork. Students work at their own pace to ensure they master the content. As a result, parents, teachers and, most importantly, students are excited about and engaged in their education, and their progress proves it. ...
With PL, though, students have a more extensive catalog of online courses from which to choose. Further, they can control the speed at which they learn the content. This means that many PL students are able to take far more classes than a traditional school setting would allow. And those students who need more time? They can work slower without the worry of falling behind or facing criticism from peers. In all, PL provides the opportunity for a richer educational experience for all students.
My only quibble has to do with the article's budgetary references, starting with the breathless lede: "Never in our state’s history have public schools been in such a dire financial crisis." That's not true, as economist Byron Schlomach has shown:




We're also told that schools have "no money in their coffers" and are "in the throes of extreme financial hardships." In truth, Oklahoma's education spending—in total and per-student—is higher than it was a decade ago, even when adjusted for inflation. In Chickasha, the one district mentioned in the article, total spending is down but per-pupil spending is up.

But those objections aside, I strongly recommend the piece and encourage you to read the whole thing here. If a teaching model can improve student learning, cut down on discipline problems, and deliver Mandarin Chinese and AP physics to kids from Boise City to Idabel, what's not to love?

No comments: